The Assignment Links for Week Twelve Are Now Active

This week you'll read and listen about the wide range of religious belief in America.  In particular, I've concentrated the reading on the religios beliefs of the founders in the personas of Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Franklin, and I've also concentrated on the Great Awakening--a period of intense religious ferver which preceded the Revolution.  


The Great Awakening is represented by a sermon by Jonathan Edwards and a podcast on George Whitfield.  You can think of these last two as the rock stars of their age.  Woman fainted when they spoke.  Men of good judgment (Franklin Autobiography)  gave all they had to charity.  Remember Franklin's going to hear a preacher and first decding to give him the copper coins in his pocket but ending up giving all he had--including the gold?  That was Whitfiled to whom Franklin was listening.

You'll also get to hear Enlightenment's take on Christian Religion.  These will come in the form of Jefferson's "Statue for Religious Freedom" and Tom Paine's "Profession of Faith" in his Age of Reason.  The founders took religion seriously, and many placed great value on the role it played in encouraging civil debate and discussion.  For some, like Jefferson, religious discussion--a subject we usually avoid in modern America--acted as a means through which each individual could weed out superstition from true belief.  If you want to get a handle on just how differently many founders viewed Christianity, google "The Jefferson Bible."

Your blog post for the week will have you writing your own profession of faith--a la Paine, and a discussion thread will have you attempting to track down religious believes you--as a class--share in common. This last discussion should give you some idea of the problem religious diversity was to the founders.  How do you bring together colonies, many of whom had state sanctioned religions?  As you read, listen, and write this week, begin thinking of the "Right to Religious Freedom" and "separation of church and state" as brilliant solutions of building a shared sense of political nationalism among diverse states and people.

As always, write with questions.

Steve